Ceramophile Alfred Ceramic Art Museum Volume XXIX Number 1 Spring 2018 Brian Oglesbee Contents Tribute to Betty Woodman ....................... 2 Director’s Remarks .................................. 4 Exhibitions 2017 ...................................... 6 Visitors ..................................................... 7 Current Exhibitions .................................. 9 Upcoming Exhibitions ........................... 12 Acquisitions and Promised Gifts ........... 13 Museum as Classroom .......................... 20 Staff Profile: Bill Giese ........................... 23 Endowing the Museum Directorship ..... 23 Ted Randall Lecture ............................... 24 Friends of the Museum ......................... 28 Cover – Cristina Córdova, with her exhibition Jungla, February 2 – July 29, 2018, Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, left: A la montaña, 2015, ceramic, 44" x 19" x 6", on loan from Lisa Shaffer Anderson and Dudley Buist Anderson Photo by Brian Oglesbee Facing page – Stanley Rosen retrospective exhibition Holding the Line, October 19, 2017 – January 1, 2018 Above – Minyao: art of the everyday – Chinese Folk Pottery exhibition, October 19, 2017 – January 1, 2018 1 Brian Oglesbee 2 Betty Woodman 1930-2018 Impermanence is the one thing we can count on. We know that, as it resides at the center of our lives. Change is the great facilitator. We often look forward to it. But, today, comes the news of Betty Woodman’s passing. On learning the news, I instantly felt very much alone – suddenly without an important component of how I ordered the universe. The feeling lingers and that lingering is a pause that will remain tender for a time from sorrow. Betty, an unapologetic visionary of twentieth century ceramics, was a great ceramic artist. She was one of the very best history has so far offered the ceramic art world and via that path the art world itself. I count myself one of the many who understand deeply that we have been fortunate to have lived in the time of Betty Woodman. She was my teacher, my dear friend, and forever will be. I fill the sudden emptiness with memories. They will have to do. They are a rich resource for me and for ceramic art. Betty is there in our hearts and minds and she is there in her glorious body of work as an artist, which lives perpetually in the present. Like many significant ceramic artists, Betty studied at Alfred and later taught a semester as a visiting artist in the acclaimed Ceramic Art Division of the School of Art and Design, New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. In and out of class she inspired with every move she made. Her students as well as future generations of ceramic artists, knowingly or not, share in the supportive touch of Betty’s extended hand of welcome – welcome to the rigors, the disappointments and the triumphs of being an artist. Pay attention and find yourself. Betty always took notice and cared. The Alfred Ceramic Art Museum celebrates the life of Betty Woodman. Institutions like ours are the gateway to what she so passionately believed in – the past and future of the art born of clay, glaze and fire. Wayne Higby January 3, 2018 Facing page: Betty Woodman, Coffee Pot Vase, 1983, earthenware, glazed, 18 1/2" x 14 1/2" x 7 3/8", gift of Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio, 1997.129 Photo by Brian Oglesbee 3 Director’s Remarks The Alfred Ceramic Art he Alfred Ceramic Art Museum celebrated a one-year anniversary on October, 28, T2017. It may seem odd to celebrate a one-year anniversary, but for the Museum, Museum celebrated a one- finally housed in its new facility, it is a marker of major significance. Each day that year anniversary on October, I enter the Museum, I take a look around at the magnificent facility as well as the important works on display and marvel at the quality that surrounds me. The Museum 28, 2017. It may seem odd team has been running all aspects of the Museum with great spirit and camaraderie. to celebrate a one-year There is a feeling of engagement in an important mission, as a coordinated anniversary, but for the commitment to excellence and the future drives our work. Honoring the legendary past of Alfred Ceramic Art while reaching for new possibilities to educate and inspire Museum, finally housed in its is good, challenging work. new facility, it is a marker of We welcome all our visitors with an invitation to enjoy the luxury of our building major significance. and the opportunity to see excellent art, beautifully presented. The opportunity to meet new and returning visitors is a most rewarding part of our work. This past fall, the Museum mounted three exhibitions - Stanley Rosen: Holding the Line, Kelcy Chase Folsom: hereafter and Minyao: art of the everyday, a presentation of Chinese Folk Pottery. The Museum opened these exhibitions on October 19 and has since then averaged over 800 visitors a month. Well, Alfred is not New York City, but the Museum is beginning to establish itself. Community members, University students, faculty and staff, Alfred University Alumni, high school and elementary school students, dignitaries from other important universities and museums in the region, area visitors as well as those from across New York State, the nation and the world have walked through the Museum doors to see these exhibitions. Those who support the Museum with their memberships and gifts are the core that sustains this Caitlin Brown Stanley Rosen arrives to view his exhibition, October 18, 2018 4 significant endeavor. We are certainly most grateful for the commitment that they make to our future. This past year, the Museum helped to establish the monthly Alfred Art Walk, a community-wide celebration of art and artists, coordinated by Caitlin Brown the Museum’s Operations and Programs Higby Wayne Stanley Rosen and Kelcy Chase Folsom share insights, October 18, 2017 Manager. This event acknowledges the well-known history of Alfred as a center conversing with Kelcy Chase Folsom of vision and art afforded our world by for the arts, which has been greatly whose terrific exhibition accompanied Betty Woodman, Akio Takamori, Paula enhanced by classical music during the Stanley’s. The conversation between Winokur, John Glick, Mario Prisco and annual summer, MostArts Festival. them was lengthy and a teaching to David Weiss. They will remain always listen in on. Stanley got Chase and his alive in our memories of what is best in The opportunity for the Museum to work with clear insight. The exchange art and life. feature the retrospective exhibition of between them was dynamic – pure Stanley Rosen’s work was a defining revelation as they each crossed the gap As time moves forward the mission of the moment. We are grateful to curator of their generations. Artist to artist, the Museum to care for ceramic art becomes Jamie Franklin and the Bennington connection was a genuine reaching out less and less abstract. Caring for the art Museum, Bennington, Vermont for to each other full of respect and concern. is also caring for the memories. Along originating the exhibition and making it What a privilege it was to have these with the facts of history the Museum available to us. This exhibition confirmed two artists together in the same space, houses the spirit of the artists, those the aspirations of the Museum to mount place and time. Their work as artists with names and those whose names significant art revealing new insights is different, yet at the core, alike – the are unknown. On view currently is an and understandings. Stanley’s work search for meaning, the vulnerability and exquisite installation of seldom seen is of major importance to twentieth deep commitment to individual purpose. ceramic work by our Alfred legends. century American ceramic art. It was an Alfred University at its best was present Those familiar with these artists - Binns, honor to have his work in the Museum. here as these two – one the master Fosdick, Harder, Randall, Rhodes, A singularly astonishing, emotionally wizard, the other the visionary of a new Parry, Turner, Cushing – will especially rewarding moment occurred as Stanley generation touched base. enjoy seeing this exhibition and sharing first witnessed his work in the Museum. memories. Those less familiar with these His presence, unattended in the center of The annual publication of Ceramophile artists will learn about the art that was this life’s work, created an indelible image always allows a pause for reflection. at the core of their historically important for me as well as for the other individuals As Museum Director, I wish to take the impact on American Ceramic Art. who witnessed this moment of mind and opportunity to acknowledge - on the part memory as he assessed his meaning as of myself, our Museum staff and all our Wayne Higby an artist – a great one to be sure. members - the passing of those who Director and Chief Curator Another one of my favorite moments have been of special importance to Alfred Alfred Ceramic Art Museum at Alfred during the time Stanley spent in the Ceramic Art and to the Museum. We will University Museum is captured in a photo of him forever be grateful for the significant gift 5 Exhibitions 2017 Brian Oglesbee Brian Oglesbee hereafter, installation by Kelcy Chase Folsom hereafter, installation by Kelcy Chase Folsom Holding the Line: Ceramic Sculpture hereafter: Kelcy Chase Folsom, Minyao: art of the everyday featured by Stanley Rosen revealed for the first presented the work of Alfred University’s a collection of Chinese Folk Pottery. In time the major significance of Rosen to Robert Chapman Turner Teaching 1998, two Michigan ceramists—Marie twentieth century American ceramic art Fellow in Ceramic Art. This provocative, Woo and John Stephenson—received (please note image of Stanley Rosen mixed media exhibition was realized as grants from the Asian Cultural Council exhibition on the inside front cover).